Sentech broadcasting tariff revision underway

Today (26 April 2012), Sentech announced the revised signal distribution costs for community broadcasters which came into effect from 1 April 2012.

As announced by ICASA on 16 April 2012, Sentech has decreased the signal distribution costs for Community TV and FM Broadcasting.

According to Sentech, the average decrease in signal distribution costs facing the community broadcasters is 33% for Community TV services and 65% for Community FM services.

The state-owned signal distributor has a mandate to provide broadcasting services to South African broadcasters. It also has to “facilitate universal access to broadcasting services,” Sentech said.

With the transition to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), Sentech said it has recognised that it is an opportune time to review its signal distribution tariffs.

“The focus of the review is to update the way in which we construct our tariffs to align it with the new digital environment in which we currently operate,” said Sentech CEO Setumo Mohapi. “This will apply to both existing tariffs for Analogue and new tariffs that will come into effect for DTT.”

Sentech said its tariffs recognise the relative contribution of the different categories of broadcasting licensees to the operational and infrastructure cost base of Sentech, but does not discriminate or provide preferential tariffs to any category or customer.

“Furthermore, the tariffs take into account that most community broadcasters largely use a single service site for broadcasting,” Sentech said.

Sentech said that it is in the process of finalising the review of its tariffs for other categories of Broadcasting Services.